


Born From Things You Cannot Be

by OwenToDawn



Series: 15 Day Lyric Challenge 2020 [8]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Black Eagles Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:21:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26054857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OwenToDawn/pseuds/OwenToDawn
Summary: Sylvain tries to make Felix stop running away
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: 15 Day Lyric Challenge 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882966
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	Born From Things You Cannot Be

**Author's Note:**

> Today's fic is inspired by the following lyric:
> 
> "If there's one thing I'd keep, it's you that I would save/Cuz I am just a lion and a lion I will stay" from Lion by Hollywood Undead. There's a lot of lyrics in this song that feel very Felix/Sylvain. Honestly most of this song feels very Crimson Flowers!Felix
> 
> Title from the same song
> 
> Comments are loved

“Are you ever going to stay?”

Felix freezes, heart in his throat, at the sound of Sylvain’s voice. He doesn’t even sound tired, which means he hadn’t been asleep at all and had feigned it so Felix felt it was safe to leave, just as he’s been doing for the last year and a half any time he made the mistake of falling into Sylvain’s bed.

“I can’t stay,” Felix says, hand on the door handle.

“Why not?”

The question almost makes Felix laugh at the absurdity. As if Sylvain, of all people, doesn’t know exactly what’s he given up, exactly what he became, just so they could put Dimitri out of his misery and stop him from dragging his citizens down into the mud with them. There’s a reason he doesn’t settle down now. He’s known where his path led ever since he first put himself on it after Glenn died. Has Sylvain been so blind that he hasn’t noticed? Even now?

"You can’t be serious,” Felix says. “It’s obvious.”

“Well, I’m an idiot, so come back to bed and explain it to me.”

The door handle turns under Felix’s hand and he all but orders himself to push the door open and leave Sylvain behind in the near empty Gautier estate and return to the wandering he’s become accustomed to. But his body doesn’t listen to him. Instead, he drops his hand and turns back around. Sylvain shifts in bed and there’s a hiss of gas as he turns on one of the small lamps near his bedside. Felix hovers at the edge of the bed. He’d been invited back in sure, and yet he can’t help but feel apprehensive about crawling into such a space without a purpose.

He comes here for a distraction. Not just himself, but for Sylvain too, giving them both a few hours to lose themselves in each other’s bodies, in mindless pleasure tinged with an edge of pain. It’s something he can tether himself to before he goes back out to accept another mercenary job, or spy work for Hubert. He knows it’s the same for Sylvain. Felix is a distraction from the slow but methodical dismantling of the old Faerghus nobility. That’s all it can be. That’s all _Felix_ can be.

“Goddess, you’re such a pain,” Sylvain says, grabbing at Felix’s hand and tugging him into bed.

Felix huffs and settles on the bed, back to the headboard, and looks down at Sylvain who’s still shirtless where he lies propped up on his elbows beside him. His pale chest is marred with bruises and bite marks from when Felix had pressed him into the mattress as he’d fucked Sylvain breathless. 

“So. Tell me why you can’t stay here in my bed when I want you here and I know you don’t actually want to go,” Sylvain says.

"You don’t know shit about what I want,” Felix says.

"Oh, I don’t?”

Felix tugs his knees up to his chest, feeling too much like a child for a man who spent most his life in battle or at war. “It’s not about what I want anyways. It’s…do you really not see it?”

“See what?” Sylvain asks.

Felix gestures towards the end of the bed towards Sylvain’s overly gaudy and ornate vanity with its too large mirror on top. Even here, he can see the cold look in his own eyes. It’s not like the madness of Dimitri’s, the desperate and deep craving for blood and violence, but they’re still the same at their core. Not human. Something less than. The bits that get left behind when everything else has been ripped away.

“I see my best friend and the man I’ve loved since childhood,” Sylvain asks, voice callous, the way it gets when he’s trying to hide the depth of his emotions. “So why don’t you tell me what you see because apparently it’s not fucking lining up with what I’m looking at.”

"I’m just like him,” Felix says, staring at his reflection. “All I can offer anyone is violence, Sylvain, it’s why I’m doing mercenary work and cleaning up all Hubert’s messes. I can’t…I had to be strong enough to fight him, and I was. I killed my father, I killed Dimitri, I did my fucking duty that was owed to the citizens I was supposed to protect, but I paid the price for that.”

“And I didn’t?”

“No, you didn’t,” Felix says. “I…Sylvain, all I’ve done is train so that I could be strong enough to do what needed to be done because I always fucking knew…I mean I hoped it would be different but I just knew that someone was going to have to put the boar down eventually. And the person that can put down a monster like that isn’t a person who can give _anyone_ anything other than violence, so stop acting like I can. I’m just going to let you down.”

By the end of it, Felix’s throat hurts from shouting and he flings himself out of the bed, pushing his fingers through his hair and tugging at it before running his fingers through it again as he paces. Now that he’s started, he can’t quite seem to be able to stop. It’s like everything from the last few years has bubbled up inside of him and Sylvain ripped the lid off and let it all spill over.

“You think I _want_ to wander around all of Fódlan guarding merchants or assassinating targets? You think I _want_ to be this fucking mess of a…of a creature?”

“Felix-“

“Shut up!” Felix fixes him with a glare, jabbing a finger in his direction. “You wanted an answer, so shut up and listen. You and Ingrid and everyone else joined Edelgard because you knew it was right, but none of you had the fucking balls _ever_ to try and stop it from turning into this mess beforehand. I warned all of you what Dimitri was capable of and no one listened, so I had to take that burden on myself and I did, and I saw it through. And now you act like I’m slighting you because I won’t stay in your bed and hurt you too, when I’m like this because you all left me to deal with this alone!”

He stops then. There’s nothing else to say. It’s like he’s finally bled out a wound that’s been poisoning him from the deepest part of his body. The fear that like Dimitri, eventually someone will have to come along and put him down too, so he doesn’t tear apart the ones he loves sits heavy within him still. Going by the look on Sylvain’s face, it’s justified.

"I told you all I’d ever do was hurt you if I stay,” Felix says. “So I’m going to leave.”

“Don’t,” Sylvain says.

“How can you still say that when you’re crying?” Felix asks, gesturing in his direction with a half-hearted motion.

His words seem to startle Sylvain who reaches up and touches his cheeks, staring at the tears that dangle on his fingertips when he looks down. “Felix I’m not…I’m not crying because you hurt me.”

“Don’t give me some fake platitude now,” Felix says.

“I’m not!” Sylvain pushes himself up, shifting to the end of the bed and then standing up, uncaring of his nudity as he crosses the distance between them. “It’s not fake, Felix. All I’ve ever wanted from you is for you to be honest. And for you to stay. You aren’t some beast that’s going to tear me apart. I…I never should have left you alone to bear the burden of killing Rodrigue and Dimitri, so let me make it up to you. Let me make sure you aren’t alone now.”

“It’s not that easy,” Felix says, but he’s not sure he even believes it himself. There’s no reason for him to walk out the door if Sylvain insists he stays even knowing the danger of such a request. There’s no point protecting a man who doesn’t want to be protected.

“I didn’t say it was going to be easy,” Sylvain says. “I said I don’t want you to be alone. So come back to bed, and when the morning comes, stay with me a little longer. Work with me here, man. You…you’re the one I want to stay side by side with. If that means I’ve gotta roam all over Fódlan with you, I’ll do it, but for now just…come back to bed?”

Sylvain stands so close, his plea is almost pressed to Felix’s lips. For a moment, Felix can feel himself shirking away, terrified of what harm he could bring down on both their heads. Looking into Sylvain’s eyes and seeing acceptance after everything he’d just poured out…that gives him the strength to stay instead.


End file.
